1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to automated transaction processing and more particularly to a computerized system and method for reserving hotel rooms using a computer to receive and process the hotel reservations from travel agents and users, and to sequentially generate and send different text facsimile confirmation letters and payment orders to the hotels, travel agents, banks, and other third parties, via their respective fax devices in an uninterrupted consolidated fashion.
2. Description of the Background Art
Despite the tremendous volume of travel related business which is conducted on a daily basis in the U.S. and throughout the world, the process of booking and administering hotel and travel reservations remains highly labor intensive for tour operators, wholesalers, and hotel reservation services. These companies are called "travel resellers", and make their profit by buying hotel rooms at a discount and marking up the price. On average, approximately 25 minutes is required to receive, book, and confirm each hotel reservation. Prior to the present invention, the travel reseller received the hotel reservation request from the traveler or his travel agent and subsequently prepared a confirmation document showing the reservation and retail price of the hotel room, a confirmation number, the name and address of the hotel, and various other information pertinent to the traveler's transaction. Separately, a document was prepared for transmittal to the hotel, confirming the reservation and usually stating the agreed upon retail price, as well as the price to be paid (or the commission to be received) by the travel agent. If a group stay was involved, a consolidated statement might be prepared, whereby a single document listed all of the travelers and their reservations.
As a separate manual step, the travel reseller prepared a bank deposit slip, either in the form of a credit card debit slip or a deposit record attached to the customer's check. This bank deposit was then mailed or delivered to the banking institution for payment. In the case of a franchise operation, a franchisee might then prepare a separate document to send to the franchiser along with franchise payments, if applicable. In cases where the travel reseller was offering a "package" including, for example, a shuttle transfer from the airport, the shuttle company might be separately notified of the reservation plans, using an additional manually generated document.
Presently, in the typical hotel reservation transaction for travel resellers, at least several different transaction forms must be prepared and transmitted to various parties. Conventional Personal Computer (PC) technology provides document facsimile capability directly from a user's computer. Utilizing PC technology, the present invention allows a user to enter hotel reservation information into a database and have a number of different documents sequentially generated and automatically transmitted to the various parties in the reservation transaction.